The Bittermeads Mystery
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E. R. Punshon >> The Bittermeads Mystery
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14 The Bittermeads Mystery
by E. R. Punshon
CONTENTS
I THE LONE PASSENGER
II THE FIGHT IN THE WOODS
III A COINCIDENCE
IV A WOMAN WEEPS
V A WOMAN AND A MAN
VI A DISCOVERY
VII QUESTION AND ANSWER
VIII CAPTIVITY CAPTURE
IX THE ATTIC OF MYSTERY
X THE NEW GARDENER
XI THE PROBLEM
XII AN AVOWAL
XIII INVISIBLE WRITING
XIV LOVE-MAKING AT NIGHT
XV THE SOUND OF A SHOT
XVI IN THE WOOD
XVII A DECLARATION
XVIII ROBERT DUNN'S ENEMY
XIX THE VISIT TO WRESTE ABBEY
XX ELLA'S WARNING
XXI DOUBTS AND FEARS
XXII PLOTS AND PLANS
XXIII COUNTER PLANS
XXIV AN APHORISM
XXV THE UNEXPECTED
XXVI A RACE AGAINST TIME
XXVII FLIGHT AND PURSUIT
XXVIII BACK AT BITTERMEADS
XXIX THE ATTIC
XXX SOME EXPLANATIONS
XXXI CONCLUSION
CHAPTER I
THE LONE PASSENGER
That evening the down train from London deposited at the little
country station of Ramsdon but a single passenger, a man of middle
height, shabbily dressed, with broad shoulders and long arms and a
most unusual breadth and depth of chest.
Of his face one could see little, for it was covered by a thick
growth of dark curly hair, beard, moustache and whiskers, all
overgrown and ill-tended, and as he came with a somewhat slow and
ungainly walk along the platform, the lad stationed at the gate to
collect tickets grinned amusedly and called to one of the porters
near:
"Look at this, Bill; here's the monkey-man escaped and come back
along of us."
It was a reference to a travelling circus that had lately visited
the place and exhibited a young chimpanzee advertised as "the
monkey-man," and Bill guffawed appreciatively.
The stranger was quite close and heard plainly, for indeed the youth
at the gate had made no special attempt to speak softly.
The boy was still laughing as he held out his hand for the ticket,
and the stranger gave it to him with one hand and at the same time
shot out a long arm, caught the boy--a well-grown lad of sixteen
--by the middle and, with as little apparent effort as though
lifting a baby, swung him into the air to the top of the gate-post,
where he left him clinging with arms and legs six feet from the
ground.
"Hi, what are you a-doing of?" shouted the porter, running up, as
the amazed and frightened youth, clinging to his gate-post, emitted
a dismal howl.
"Teaching a cheeky boy manners," retorted the stranger with an angry
look and in a very gruff and harsh voice. "Do you want to go on
top of the other post to make a pair?"
The porter drew back hurriedly.
"You be off," he ordered as he retreated. "We don't want none of
your sort about here."
"I certainly have no intention of staying," retorted the other as
gruffly as before. "But I think you'll remember Bobbie Dunn next
time I come this way."
"Let me down; please let me down," wailed the boy, clinging
desperately to the gate-post on whose top he had been so
unceremoniously deposited, and Dunn laughed and walked away, leaving
the porter to rescue his youthful colleague and to cuff his ears
soundly as soon as he had done so, by way of a relief to his feelings.
"That will learn you to be a bit civil to folk, I hope," said the
porter severely. "But that there chap must have an amazing strong
arm," he added thoughtfully. "Lifting you up there all the same as
you was a bunch of radishes."
For some distance after leaving the station, Dunn walked on slowly.
He seemed to know the way well or else to be careless of the
direction he took, for he walked along deep in thought with his eyes
fixed on the ground and not looking in the least where he was going.
Abruptly, a small child appeared out of the darkness and spoke to
him, and he started violently and in a very nervous manner.
"What was that? What did you say, kiddy?" he asked, recovering
himself instantly and speaking this time not in the gruff and harsh
tones he had used before but in a singularly winning and pleasant
voice, cultivated and gentle, that was in odd contrast with his
rough and battered appearance. "The time, was that what you wanted
to know?"
"Yes, sir; please, sir," answered the child, who had shrunk back in
alarm at the violent start Dunn had given, but now seemed reassured
by his gentle and pleasant voice. "The right time," the little one
added almost instantly and with much emphasis on the "right."
Dunn gravely gave the required information with the assurance that
to the best of his belief it was "right," and the child thanked him
and scampered off.
Resuming his way, Dunn shook his head with an air of grave
dissatisfaction.
"Nerves all to pieces," he muttered. "That won't do. Hang it all,
the job's no worse than following a wounded tiger into the jungle,
and I've done that before now. Only then, of course, one knew what
to expect, whereas now--And I was a silly ass to lose my temper
with that boy at the station. You aren't making a very brilliant
start, Bobby, my boy."
By this time he had left the little town behind him and he was
walking along a very lonely and dark road.
On one side was a plantation of young trees, on the other there was
the open ground, covered with furze bush, of the village common.
Where the plantation ended stood a low, two-storied house of medium
size, with a veranda stretching its full length in front. It stood
back from the road some distance and appeared to be surrounded by a
large garden.
At the gate Dunn halted and struck a match as if to light a pipe,
and by the flickering flame of this match the name "Bittermeads,"
painted on the gate became visible.
"Here it is, then," he muttered. "I wonder--"
Without completing the sentence he slipped through the gate, which
was not quite closed, and entered the garden, where he crouched
down in the shadow of some bushes that grew by the side of the
gravel path leading to the house, and seemed to compose himself
for a long vigil.
An hour passed, and another. Nothing had happened--he had seen
nothing, heard nothing, save for the passing of an occasional
vehicle or pedestrian on the road, and he himself had never stirred
or moved, so that he seemed one with the night and one with the
shadows where he crouched, and a pair of field-mice that had come
from the common opposite went to and fro about their busy occupations
at his feet without paying him the least attention.
Another hour passed, and at last there began to be signs of life
about the house.
A light shone in one window and in another, and vanished, and soon
the door opened and there appeared two people on the threshold,
clearly visible in the light of a strong incandescent gas-burner
just within the hall.
The watcher in the garden moved a little to get a clearer view.
In the paroxysm of terror at this sudden coming to life of what
they had believed to be a part of the bushes, the two little
field-mice scampered away, and Dunn bit his lip with annoyance,
for he knew well that some of those he had had traffic with in the
past would have been very sure, on hearing that scurrying-off of
the frightened mice, that some one was lurking near at hand.
But the two in the lighted doorway opening on the veranda heard and
suspected nothing.
One was a man, one a woman, both were young, both were
extraordinarily good-looking, and as they stood in the blaze of the
gas they made a strikingly handsome and attractive picture on which,
however, Dunn seemed to look from his hiding-place with hostility
and watchful suspicion.
"How dark it is, there's not a star showing," the girl was saying.
"Shall you be able to find your way, even with the lantern? You'll
keep to the road, won't you?"
Her voice was low and pleasant and so clear Dunn heard every word
distinctly. She seemed quite young, not more than twenty or
twenty-one, and she was slim and graceful in build and tall for a
woman. Her face, on which the light shone directly, was oval in
shape with a broad, low forehead on which clustered the small,
unruly curls of her dark brown hair, and she had clear and very
bright brown eyes. The mouth and chin were perhaps a little large
to be in absolute harmony with the rest of her features, and she
was of a dark complexion, with a soft and delicate bloom that
would by itself have given her a right to claim her possession of
a full share of good looks. She was dressed quite simply in a
white frock with a touch of colour at the waist and she had a very
flimsy lace shawl thrown over her shoulders, presumably intended
as a protection against the night air.
Her companion was a very tall and big man, well over six feet in
height, with handsome, strongly-marked features that often bore an
expression a little too haughty, but that showed now a very tender
and gentle look, so that it was not difficult to guess the state of
his feelings towards the girl at his side. His shoulders were broad,
his chest deep, and his whole build powerful in the extreme, and
Dunn, looking him up and down with the quick glance of one accustomed
to judge men, thought that he had seldom seen one more capable of
holding his own.
Answering his companion's remark, he said lightly:
"Oh, no, I shall cut across the wood, it's ever so much shorter,
you know."
"But it's so dark and lonely," the girl protested. "And then, after
last week--"
He interrupted her with a laugh, and he lifted his head with a
certain not unpleasing swagger.
"I don't think they'll trouble me for all their threats," he said.
"For that matter, I rather hope they will try something of the sort
on. They need a lesson."
"Oh, I do hope you'll be careful," the girl exclaimed.
He laughed again and made another lightly-confident, almost-boastful
remark, to the effect that he did not think any one was likely to
interfere with him.
For a minute or two longer they lingered, chatting together as they
stood in the gas-light on the veranda and from his hiding-place Dunn
watched them intently. It seemed that it was the girl in whom he
was chiefly interested, for his eyes hardly moved from her and in
them there showed a very grim and hard expression.
"Pretty enough," he mused. "More than pretty. No wonder poor
Charles raved about her, if it's the same girl--if it is, she ought
to know what's become of him. But then, where does this big chap
come in?"
The "big chap" seemed really going now, though reluctantly, and it
was not difficult to see that he would have been very willing to
stay longer had she given him the least encouragement.
But that he did not get, and indeed it seemed as if she were a
little bored and a little anxious for him to say good night and go.
At last he did so, and she retired within the house, while he came
swinging down the garden path, passing close to where Dunn lay
hidden, but without any suspicion of his presence, and out into the
high road.
CHAPTER II
THE FIGHT IN THE WOOD
From his hiding-place in the bushes Dunn slipped out, as the big
man vanished into the darkness down the road, and for the fraction
of a second he seemed to hesitate.
The lights in the house were coming and going after a fashion that
suggested that the inmates were preparing for bed, and almost at
once Dunn turned his back to the building and hurried very quickly
and softly down the road in the direction the big man had just
taken.
"After all," he thought, "the house can't run away, that will be
still there when I come back, and I ought to find out who this big
chap is and where he comes from."
In spite of the apparent clumsiness of his build and the ungainliness
of his movements it was extraordinary how swiftly and how quietly he
moved, a shadow could scarcely have made less sound than this man
did as he melted through the darkness and a swift runner would have
difficulty in keeping pace with him.
An old labourer going home late bade the big man a friendly good
night and passed on without seeing or hearing Dunn following close
behind, and a solitary woman, watching at her cottage door, saw
plainly the big man's tall form and heard his firm and heavy steps
and would have been ready to swear no other passed that way at that
time, though Dunn was not five yards behind, slipping silently and
swiftly by in the shelter of the trees lining the road.
A little further beyond this cottage a path, reached by climbing a
stile, led from the high road first across an open field and then
through the heart of a wood that seemed to be of considerable extent.
The man Dunn was following crossed this stile and when he had gone
a yard or two along the path he halted abruptly, as though all at
once grown uneasy, and looked behind.
From where he stood any one following him across the stile must have
shown plainly visible against the sky line, but though he lingered
for a moment or two, and even, when he walked on, still looked back
very frequently, he saw nothing.
Yet Dunn, when his quarry paused and looked back like this, was only
a little distance behind, and when the other moved on Dunn was still
very near.
But he had not crossed the stile, for when he came to it he realised
that in climbing it his form would be plainly visible in outline for
some distance, and so instead, he had found and crawled through a gap
in the hedge not far away.
They came, Dunn so close and so noiseless behind his quarry he might
well have seemed the other's shadow, to the outskirts of the wood,
and as they entered it Dunn made his first fault, his first failure
in an exhibition of woodcraft that a North American Indian or an
Australian "black-fellow" might have equalled, but could not have
surpassed.
For he trod heavily on a dry twig that snapped with a very loud,
sharp retort, clearly audible for some distance in the quiet night,
and, as dry twigs only snap like that under the pressure of
considerable weight, the presence of some living creature in the
wood other than the small things that run to and fro beneath the
trees, stood revealed to all ears that could hear.
Dunn stood instantly perfectly still, rigid as a statue, listening
intently, and he noted with satisfaction and keen relief that the
regular heavy tread of the man in front did not alter or change.
"Good," he thought to himself. "What luck, he hasn't heard it."
He moved on again, as silently as before, perhaps a little inclined
to be contemptuous of any one who could fail to notice so plain a
warning, and he supposed that the man he was following must be some
townsman who knew nothing at all of the life of the country and was,
like so many of the dwellers in cities, blind and deaf outside the
range of the noises of the streets and the clamour of passing traffic.
This thought was still in his mind when all at once the steady sound
of footsteps he had been following ceased suddenly and abruptly, cut
off on the instant as you turn off water from a tap.
Dunn paused, too, supposing that for some reason the other had
stopped for a moment and would soon walk on again.
But a minute passed and then another and there was still no sound of
the footsteps beginning again. A little puzzled, Dunn moved
cautiously forward.
He saw nothing, he found nothing, there was no sign at all of the
man he had been following.
It was as though he had vanished bodily from the face of the earth,
and yet how this had happened, or why, or what had become of him,
Dunn could not imagine, for this spot was, it seemed, in the very
heart of the wood, there was no shelter of any sort or kind anywhere
near, and though there were trees all round just the ground was
fairly open.
"Well, that's jolly queer," he muttered, for indeed it had a strange
and daunting effect, this sudden disappearance in the midst of the
wood of the man he had followed so far, and the silence around seemed
all the more intense now that those regular and heavy footsteps had
ceased.
"Jolly queer, as queer a thing as ever I came across," he muttered
again.
He listened and heard a faint sound from his right. He listened
again and thought he heard a rustling on his left, but was not sure
and all at once a great figure loomed up gigantic before him and the
light of lantern gleamed in his face.
"Now, my man," a voice said, "you've been following me ever since I
left Bittermeads, and I'm going to give you a lesson you won't
forget in a hurry."
Dunn stood quite still. At the moment his chief feeling was one of
intense discomfiture at the way in which he had been outwitted, and
he experienced, too, a very keen and genuine admiration for the
woodcraft the other had shown.
Evidently, all the time he had known, or at any rate, suspected,
that he was being followed, and choosing this as a favourable spot
he had quietly doubled on his tracks, come up behind his pursuer,
and taken him unawares.
Dunn had not supposed there was a man in England who could have
played such a trick on him, but his admiration was roughly disturbed
before he could express it, for the grasp upon his collar tightened
and upon his shoulders there alighted a tremendous, stinging blow,
as with all his very considerable strength, the big man brought down
his walking-stick with a resounding thwack.
The sheer surprise of it, the sudden sharp pain, jerked a quick cry
from Dunn, who had not been in the least prepared for such an attack,
and in the darkness had not seen the stick rise, and the other
laughed grimly.
"Yes, you scoundrel," he said. "I know very well who you are and
what you want, and I'm going to thrash you within an inch of your
life."
Again the stick rose in the air, but did not fall, for round about
his body Dunn laid such a grip as he had never felt before and as
would for certain have crushed in the ribs of a weaker man. The
lantern crashed to the ground, they were in darkness.
"Ha! Would you?" the man exclaimed, taken by surprise in his turn,
and, giant as he was, he felt himself plucked up from the ground as
you pluck a weed from a lawn and held for a moment in mid-air and
then dashed down again.
Perhaps not another man alive could have kept his footing under
such treatment, but, somehow, he managed to, though it needed all
his great strength to resist the shock.
He flung away his walking-stick, for he realized very clearly now
that this was not going to be, as he had anticipated, a mere case
of the administration of a deserved punishment, but rather the
starkest, fiercest fight that ever he had known.
He grappled with his enemy, trying to make the most of his superior
height and weight, but the long arms twined about him, seemed to
press the very breath from his body and for all the huge efforts he
put forth with every ounce of his tremendous strength behind them,
he could not break loose from the no less tremendous grip wherein
he was taken.
Breast to breast they fought, straining, swaying a little this way
or that, but neither yielding an inch. Their muscles stood out like
bars of steel, their breath came heavily, neither man was conscious
any more of anything save his need to conquer and win and overthrow
his enemy.
The quick passion of hot rage that had come upon Dunn when he felt
the other's unexpected blow still burned and flamed intensely, so
that he no longer remembered even the strange and high purpose which
had brought him here.
His adversary, too, had lost all consciousness of all other things
in the lust of this fierce physical battle, and when he gave
presently a loud, half-strangled shout, it was not fear that he
uttered or a cry for aid, but solely for joy in such wild struggle
and efforts as he had never known before.
And Dunn spake no word and uttered no sound, but strove all the more
with all the strength of every nerve and muscle he possessed once
again to pluck the other up that he might dash him down a second
time.
In quick and heavy gasps came their breaths as they still swayed
and struggled together, and though each exerted to the utmost a
strength few could have withstood, each found that in the other he
seemed to have met his match.
In vain Dunn tried again to lift his adversary up so that he might
hurl him to the ground. It was an effort, a grip that seemed as
though it might have torn up an oak by the roots, but the other
neither budged nor flinched beneath it.
And in vain, in his turn, did he try to bend Dunn backwards to crush
him to the earth, it was an effort before which one might have
thought that iron and stone must have given away, but Dunn still
sustained it.
Thus dreadfully they fought, there in the darkness, there in the
silence of the night.
Dreadfully they wrestled, implacable, fierce, determined, every
primeval passion awake and strong again, and slowly, very slowly,
that awful grip laid upon the big man's body began to tell.
His breathing grew more difficult, his efforts seemed aimed more
to release himself than to overcome his adversary, he gave way an
inch or two, no more, but still an inch or two of ground.
There was a sharp sound, like a thin, dry twig snapping beneath a
careless foot.
It was one of his ribs breaking beneath the dreadful and
intolerable pressure of Dunn's enormous grip. But neither of the
combatants heard or knew, and with one last effort the big man put
forth all his vast strength in a final attempt to bear his enemy
down.
Dunn resisted still, resisted, though the veins stood out like
cords on his brow, though a little trickle of blood crept from
the corner of his mouth and though his heart swelled almost to
bursting.
There was a sound of many waters in his ears, the darkness all
around grew shot with little flames, he could hear some one
breathing very noisily and he was not sure whether this were himself
or his adversary till he realized that it was both of them. With
one sudden, almost superhuman effort, he heaved his great adversary
up, but had not strength enough left to do more than let him slip
from his grasp to fall on the ground, and with the effort he himself
dropped forward on his hands and knees, just as a lantern shone at
a distance and a voice cried:
"This way, Tom. Master John, Master John, where are you?"
CHAPTER III
A COINCIDENCE
Another voice answered from near by and Dunn scrambled hurriedly to
his feet.
He had but a moment in which to decide what to do, for these new
arrivals were coming at a run and would be upon him almost instantly
if he stayed where he was.
That they were friends of the man he had just overthrown and whose
huge bulk lay motionless in the darkness at his feet, seemed plain,
and it also seemed plain to him that the moment was not an opportune
one for offering explanations.
Swiftly he decided to slip away into the darkness. What had
happened might be cleared up later when he knew more and was more
sure of his ground; at present he must think first, he told himself,
of the success of his mission.
Physically, he was greatly exhausted and his gait was not so steady
nor his progress so silent and skillful as it had been before, as
now he hurried away from the scene of the combat.
But the two new-comers made no attempt to pursue him and indeed did
not seem to give his possible presence in the vicinity even a
thought, as with many muttered exclamations of dismay and anger,
they stooped over the body of his prostrate enemy.
It was evident they recognized him at once, and that he was the "Mr.
John" whose name they had called, for so they spoke of him to each
other as they busied themselves about him.
"I expect I've been a fool again," Dunn thought to himself ruefully,
as from a little distance, well-sheltered in the darkness, he
crouched upon the ground and listened and watched. "I may have
ruined everything. Any one but a fool would have asked him what he
meant when he hit out like that instead of flying into a rage and
hitting back the way I did. Most likely it was some mistake when
he said he knew who I was and what I wanted--at least if it
wasn't--I hope I haven't killed him, anyhow."
Secure in the protection the dark night afforded him, he remained
sufficiently near at hand to be able to assure himself soon that
his overthrown adversary was certainly not killed, for now he began
to express himself somewhat emphatically concerning the manner in
which the two new-comers were ministering to him.
Presently he got to his feet and, with one of them supporting him
on each side, began to limp away, and Dunn followed them, though
cautiously and at a distance, for he was still greatly exhausted
and in neither the mood nor the condition for running unnecessary
risks.
The big man, Mr. John, as the others called him, seemed little
inclined for speech, but the others talked a good deal, subsiding
sometimes when he told them gruffly to be quiet but invariably
soon beginning again their expressions of sympathy and vows of
vengeance against his unknown assailant.
"How many of them do you think there were, Mr. John, sir?" one
asked presently. "I'll lay you marked a fair sight of the villains."
"There was only one man," Mr. John answered briefly.
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